Natus Vincere made it to the group stage of the ELEAGUE Boston 2018 Major after dismantling Liquid on Inferno (16-5)

Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov and Egor "⁠flamie⁠" Vasilyev shut down a pretty simple A attack from Liquid in the pistol round on Inferno, setting the tone for the game right from the start. The Ukrainian side went 3-0 up before losing the first buy, only to break Liquid's bank in the next one. The star of his team, Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev, was bullying Liquid with the AWP, picking up a total of 19 kills in the first nine rounds (8-1).

Liquid wasn't able to even put down the bomb in the rounds they lost, finally breaking into the B bombsite in round 14, with Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella, Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken and Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski all picking up kills. However, all of the members of the North American side simply weren't gettign kills in the first half, which ended 13-2 in favor of Natus Vincere.

s1mple had no issues decimating his former teammates

Wilton "⁠zews⁠" Prado stepped up with two USP-S entires on the CT pistol, locking down the A site with Twistzz, and with some scary anti-ecos closed out, Liquid added a couple of rounds to the board. It semed like Liquid would finally establish themselves on the map when Natus Vincere stole a round with just a couple of Deagles, with s1mple's double-entry once again instigating the action.

The 20-year-old finished the game with 30 kills, picking up the last one as the game was closed out 16-6.

ELEAGUE Major 2018 Challengers StageBest of 1 Natus VincereMatchpage 16 5 16th January 2018 Liquid 16Inferno 5

Natus Vincere	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostylievs1mple	31 - 10	+21	129.3	2.18
Danylo 'Zeus' TeslenkoZeus	21 - 8	+13	101.1	1.68
Denis 'electroNic' SharipovelectroNic	15 - 8	+7	94.0	1.50
Egor 'flamie' Vasilyevflamie	16 - 9	+7	85.4	1.44
Ioann 'Edward' SukharievEdward	7 - 11	-4	38.7	0.76

Liquid	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Russel 'Twistzz' Van DulkenTwistzz	13 - 19	-6	75.2	0.81
Jonathan 'EliGE' JablonowskiEliGE	9 - 18	-9	67.0	0.64
Nick 'nitr0' Cannellanitr0	6 - 16	-10	42.8	0.59
Josh 'jdm64' Marzanojdm64	8 - 20	-12	50.4	0.53
Wilton 'zews' Pradozews	9 - 18	-9	52.4	0.51

3-0 (qualified)
G2	Cloud9
3-1 (qualified)
Vega Squadron	FaZe
Space Soldiers
3-2 (qualified)	2-3
MOUZ	RenegadesRenegades
Quantum Bellator Fire	AVANGAR
Natus Vincere	Liquid
1-3 (eliminated)	0-3 (eliminated)
Misfits	Flash
Sprout	FlipSid3
Envy

AVANGAR #37 Timur 'buster' TulepovAidyn 'KrizzeN' TurlybekovAlexey 'Qikert' GolubevDzhami 'Jame' AliDmitry 'dimasick' Matvienko Quantum Bellator Fire #60 Gregory 'balblna' OleinickSavelii 'jmqa' BraginAurimas 'Kvik' KvakšysNikita 'waterfaLLZ' MatveyevKirill 'Boombl4' Mikhailov Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski Age: 20 Team: Liquid Rating 1.0: 1.07 Maps played: 702 KPR: 0.75 DPR: 0.70 Flash #61 YuLun 'Summer' CaiYuanZhang 'Attacker' ShengAndrew 'kaze' KhongWeiJia 'INNOPY' GuoZhe 'Ayeon' Yang Misfits #13 Sean 'seang@res' GaresShahzeb 'ShahZaM' KhanHunter 'SicK' MimsFrançois 'amanek' DelaunayDavid 'devoduvek' Dobrosavljevic Renegades #20 Justin 'jks' SavageAaron 'AZR' WardKeith 'NAF' MarkovicKarlo 'USTILO' PivacNoah 'Nifty' Francis FaZe #2 Finn 'karrigan' AndersenOlof 'olofmeister' KajbjerLadislav 'GuardiaN' KovácsNikola 'NiKo' KovačHåvard 'rain' Nygaard Vega Squadron #24 Leonid 'chopper' VishnyakovDmitriy 'jR' ChervakSergey 'keshandr' NikishinNikolay 'mir' BityukovPavel 'hutji' Lashkov Nick 'nitr0' Cannella Age: 22 Team: Liquid Rating 1.0: 1.03 Maps played: 728 KPR: 0.71 DPR: 0.68 Egor 'flamie' Vasilyev Age: 20 Team: Natus Vincere Rating 1.0: 1.06 Maps played: 860 KPR: 0.74 DPR: 0.68 Space Soldiers #23 Engin 'MAJ3R' KüpeliIsmailcan 'XANTARES' DörtkardeşBuğra 'Calyx' ArkınAhmet 'paz' KarahocaEngin 'ngiN' Kor Liquid #17 Lucas 'steel' LopesNick 'nitr0' CannellaJosh 'jdm64' MarzanoJonathan 'EliGE' JablonowskiRussel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken Natus Vincere #14 Denis 'electroNic' SharipovEgor 'flamie' VasilyevOleksandr 's1mple' KostylievIoann 'Edward' SukharievDanylo 'Zeus' Teslenko G2 #7 Richard 'shox' PapillonKenny 'kennyS' SchrubNathan 'NBK-' SchmittDan 'apEX' MadesclaireAlexandre 'bodyy' Pianaro Wilton 'zews' Prado Age: 30 Team: LiquidC MOUZ #8 Tomáš 'oskar' ŠťastnýChris 'chrisJ' de JongMiikka 'suNny' KemppiMartin 'STYKO' StykRobin 'ropz' Kool FlipSid3 Yegor 'markeloff' MarkelovAndrey 'B1ad3' GorodenskiyDenis 'seized' KostinGeorgi 'WorldEdit' YaskinJan 'wayLander' Rahkonen Denis 'electroNic' Sharipov Age: 19 Team: Natus Vincere Rating 1.0: 1.09 Maps played: 432 KPR: 0.77 DPR: 0.69 Sprout #29 Jesse 'zehN' LinjalaPaweł 'innocent' MocekKevin 'kRYSTAL' AmendTimo 'Spiidi' RichterDenis 'denis' Howell Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken Age: 18 Team: Liquid Rating 1.0: 1.14 Maps played: 454 KPR: 0.77 DPR: 0.64 Envy #15 Christophe 'SIXER' XiaCédric 'RpK' GuipouyAdil 'ScreaM' BenrlitomVincent 'Happy' SchopenhauerAlexandre 'xms' Forté Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostyliev Age: 20 Team: Natus Vincere Rating 1.0: 1.20 Maps played: 693 KPR: 0.84 DPR: 0.69 Cloud9 #5 Tyler 'Skadoodle' LathamWilliam 'RUSH' WierzbaTarik 'tarik' CelikTimothy 'autimatic' TaJake 'Stewie2K' Yip